


Such People

by laughablyunimportant



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Gen, I don't know how else to tag this, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Original Character(s), Uhm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-05
Updated: 2011-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-26 23:02:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 8,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughablyunimportant/pseuds/laughablyunimportant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death comes in many shapes and sizes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Would-Be Rescuer

**Author's Note:**

> This is literally the first fic I ever posted to AO3.
> 
> So you see how it's had minor changes? That would be in reference to the fact that it was a formatting disaster.  
> I've pretty much kept the content the same, because trying to rewrite old stories for improvement would just have me running in circles, but the formatting definitely needed improving. 
> 
> Hope this is easier for y'all to read now.

          The building shakes again, and you halt in your doorway, leaning heavily on the frame. That’s what you’re supposed to do in an earthquake, right? Stand in doorframes?  
          You’re not sure. They don’t exactly hold earthquake drills in Houston, Texas. At least, not when you went to school, they didn’t.  
          The building seems to settle, and you scuttle down the hall, sticking close to the wall until you get to the stairwell. Other people are shoving and pushing past you, streaming downstairs with a heavy current of panic, and you climb a few steps just to get out of the flow of traffic. You’re watching them go by, the familiar and unfamiliar mix of faces of the people in your apartment building blurring together to give you a single impression of fear. The flow dwindles, until it’s single file, and then just one or two people, every few seconds, and then no one but you, standing in an empty stairwell as the building trembles once more.  
          You should head downstairs. This might be your first earthquake, but even you know that being stuck inside tall buildings during natural disasters is a bad idea. So you should start heading down. Right now. Just lift your foot and ah heck you’re going upstairs, why the—but you know why. It’s stupid, and asinine, and it could cost you your life. But among all those faces, there were two missing, two that you care about, a lot. A blonde man with pointy shades, and a little kid wearing aviators. Maybe they’re not home right now. Maybe they went down before you got to the stairwell. Maybe they’re fine. But Mr. Strider…he’s not exactly what you think of as grade-a parent material. And you’d never forgive yourself if the little squirt died because his brother didn’t notice that the whole building was swaying like a sorority girl on her fifth jello shot.  
          So you climb.


	2. The Player

          You glance around, looking for something to prototype this feathery asshole with, when Cal catches your eye. Poor guy didn’t deserve to get torn up like that, and it was kind of your fault, even if it _was_ your Bro who did the slicing. You move to pick up Cal, planning to throw him in to be your spirit guide or whatever, when, what the fuck, that’s you, and that’s a lot of sick loot, and then you…jump in the kernelsprite?  
          Okay what the fuck just happened.  
          After you—the bird you—gets the whole business with John sorted out, you—actually you—just sort of stare at yourself for a while. Not yourself yourself, but like. The bright orange dude with your face and a fucking sword through his chest. You want to make a comment about how you’re even smoother than you thought, kicking all that ass and traveling back in time like terminator or something except, you know, less fucking stupid. But you’re worried that this guy is already thinking he’s better than you and hell, maybe he is. He’s got four months of hardcore battle experience on you, and you’ve got, what, a stable timeline? You need to start showing this guy what makes you the alpha Strider, and be quick about it.  
          So when he gives you an opening to ask about anything at all, you know you can’t actually ask him anything. You’re Dave-motherfucking-Strider, you already know all the important shit there is to know. Instead, you open your mouth and say, "Why are we so motherfucking awes—"  
          "Liz?"  
          How the hell are you supposed to establish a pecking order if the feathery hold up a minute did he just say Liz?  
          You spin around, and there she is. Standing in the doorway that leads to the flight of stairs, your babysitter is looking at you like you just sprouted wings and started glowing technicolor orange—oh wait.  
          You glance over at the other you—Davesprite, you guess?—but there’s no way you’d ask what she’s doing here, even if—  
          "What are you _doing_ here? "  
          Oh. Well, looks like you’re both in the dark about this.  
          You swing your shades back Liz’s way, who’s still standing in that doorway like a half bird half boy clone of you is the weirdest thing she’s ever seen, and you really start to wonder, what _is_ she doing here? You hadn’t thought it was even possible for someone who wasn’t a player to hitch a ride into the medium—but then, on some level you _know_ your Bro is in here, and he isn’t a player. So it’s possible, but—why?


	3. The Sprite

          It grips you then, the panicked thought that _the game hasn’t started yet, you’re in time_ , you can _stop it all from happening_.  
          But, that’s impossible. You time-traveled, you’re a sprite, it’s pretty much a given that the game has already started. But why is your babysitter here? You spent more than four months bouncing around the medium and never saw her once. Never saw anyone except Rose and more guys you had to show your stabs. The entire human race had shrunk to you and rows of purple-pink text on pesterchum.   
          She’s sinking in the doorway, legs slowly folding under her, and you glance over at alpha Dave, looking for some kind of cue on how he wants to handle this.   
           _Why are you looking at Dave? Why are you following his lead?_  
          Your eyes widen, just the tiniest bit, and a shiver runs through you when you realize you’d accepted the position as second fiddle to alpha Dave without hesitation, without even thinking about it. You knew you were a cocky son of a bitch (Rose had said it often enough, extra emphasis on bitch), and that five minutes ago, you had been prepared to take the lead in all this, skating through the game and dragging Dave with you. Then you threw yourself into the kernelsprite, and now there’s a thrumming in your veins, a pulsing beat telling you to protect, to guide, to serve.   
          "Dave? Why—Why are there two of you?" Her voice is shaking, and you glance around, trying to figure out why. You’re just in the Medium. The ground drops away at the edge of the roof, falling into incomplete darkness, a faint red glow welling up from below. Your ability to feel is already fading, but the heat still hangs in the air, arid crackle like and unlike the normally heavy heat of Houston.   
          "We’re in the Medium." You just thought it, but somehow, hearing it come from someone else’s mouth makes it sound weirder. "I was just about to call in Patricia Arquette for her close-up."   
          She just keeps staring, and it makes you feel off, like something about this isn’t right _you’re a half-crow with a sword through your chest what part of this is right_ so you say " Look, maybe you should just go back."


	4. The Survivors

          The orange one and the—the normal one, they’re both looking at you, identical deadpan faces, identical pairs of shades, and for what feels like the thirteenth time in the past four minutes, you wonder what in the world is going on.   
          The orange one’s words shift in your head, clicking into comprehension, and, that’s it, there you go, your ass is officially on the ground because this stuff is too heavy to stand through. "Back?" You struggle to tone it down, keep it calm, because he’s just a kid, and you’re supposed to be strong for him, but "There’s nowhere to go back to." It happened while you were in the stairwell, only two flights from the top—a wrenching like nothing you’d ever felt before, and then cracks were running up the walls as the whole building shook, a roar like the end of the world coming from above and you dove forward, clinging to the rail as tightly as you could manage. When the dust settled, the stairs stopped just a few steps below where you were standing, meeting nothing but air. There had been nowhere to go but up.  
          "We should call the police," you say. Though you’re not really sure you’re somewhere the police can get to. "Come on, we’ll go down to your apartment, and—"  
          The orange one laughs, something that sets the hairs on your neck to prickling, like a crow cawing, but somehow crueler, and more…desperate. "There’s no one," he says. "There’s no one to call."  
          You close your eyes and take a breath, willfully ignoring his implication. "Your brother probably has survival supplies stashed somewhere, we can put together a pack and find somewhere safe, search for other survivors—"  
          And then the orange one is in your face, doing that weird flash-step thing that you never really could wrap your head around, the sword in his stomach poking into your chest as he hovers at eye-level. "There is nowhere safe. There are no fucking survivors."  
          "Language." Your voice is hoarse and too quiet, but they both hear you, because the normal one barks out a laugh—a normal laugh for the normal looking one, nothing of crows or desperation in his voice—before quickly smothering it with his traditional cool-guy look.   
          "Look," he says, "it kind of takes a long time to explain, and I’ve got things to do, so he’ll take care of it." You glance over at the orange one, who still makes you nervous, but he’s looking behind you, and then there’s a hand on your shoulder and when you go to look up, there’s. There’s another. Dave.  
          "Sup," he says, and you feel like chewing him out for the smart-aleck attitude, but his hand helping you up is about the only thing keeping you from just collapsing into a gibbering puddle at this point, so you let it slide.  
          "Come on," he tugs you back down the stairs and your fingers curl in his, reminded of all the times you led him, "I think we still have some of your coffee in the apartment. Somewhere."


	5. The Extra Piece

          Your hands circle around the bottle of orange soda, the only drink Dave had been able to find for you after all. You’re doing your best not to shake, but, how are you supposed to not cry? This kid just—he just said—  
          "Everyone?" Your voice doesn’t crack this time, for which you’re grateful.  
          He shrugs, like it’s old news, like he doesn’t care, _like the fact that every person you’ve ever known on earth is dead doesn’t matter_ " Barring the intervention of Bruce Willis, I’m pretty sure there’s no way for anyone to survive cataclysmic meteors raining down from the sky." He pauses, taking a sip of his own drink. "Unless they were playing sburb and got into the Medium, which was just us, as far as I know."  
          "Us being you and your friends? The ones you met online?" He gives you a look like that should be obvious, and the plastic bottle of applejuice crinkles as you tighten your grasp. His attitude is grating on your nerves, and you’re seized by the crazy impulse to put him on time-out, something you haven’t tried since he was six. But you try to be understanding. After all, an uncaring façade is the way Striders cope (or maybe just the way they are. It’s been a while since you’ve been close to them, and things change).  
          "It’s okay," you say. "Everything is going to be alright." The words don’t really make you feel any better, but that look Dave gives you like you’re being an idiot makes something twist in the pit of your stomach.   
          There’s the hum of something vibrating, and then Dave slips his phone out of his pocket, one eyebrow going up a fraction of an inch at whatever he sees there before he taps out a quick reply and pushes back from the table to stand up.   
          "What’s going on?"  
"The loop just completed itself, I’ve gotta get back to—" he hesitates, and you complete his thought with _more important things_ " —to the roof."  
You stand up too and say "I’m going with you," expecting him to argue, prepared to pull rank on him. But he doesn’t, just heads out of the apartment again, typing on his phone as he walks, and you wonder how much a person can really change in six months.


	6. The Babysitter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six Months Ago.

**Six Months Ago**  
          "Here you go squirt." Dave yanks his hand out of yours, weaving past his brother into his apartment without looking back at you. It kind of hurts, but you guess you’d be mad too if you’d been dragged back home by the hand. It was some kind of universal rule that kids hated being treated like kids.  
          You eye Mr. Strider standing in the doorway. He hasn’t said anything yet, but that’s pretty typical for him. It’s up to you to be the adult here, again.  
          "I found him on the roof, playing with some of your weapons. He said you gave them to him."  
          He stares at you some more.  
          "You can’t just leave a bunch of swords lying around the house. He could have really hurt himself!" He’s still just looking at you with those stupid pointy shades, and you wonder how Dave even stands it, not being able to tell what the man who raised him is thinking. But then, the unreadable are probably a little clearer to each other. "Well?"  
          "It’s not your concern."  
          You blink at him, faltering. "Not…? He, he was playing with swords. Actual weapons. That’s dangerous for an adult, let alone a little kid like him!"  
          "He’s not just a kid."  
          "He’s twelve. I know you want him to grow up and everything, but you have to remember that he’s got time for that. Right now—"  
          "You need to stop coming around here."  
          Your breath hitches and you stumble to a stop. "What?"  
          "He’s old enough to watch himself. Has been for years now."  
          "You can’t just, just shut me out. I’m a part of his life, I’m—"  
          "You’re not anything. You’re not his mom, or his sister. You’re not even his friend. You’re his babysitter. And I no longer have need of your services."  
          "I—"  
          "Don’t bother us again."  
          The door shut, inches from your face. You stared at it for at least another minute, trying to figure out what had just happened. What it meant. Where those tears came from, and why the thought of not seeing Dave anymore hurt so much.


	7. The Follower

          The first time you go to scout around a corner before Dave, he smirks, there and then there too, already ahead of you and giving the all clear and then the Dave behind you is gone because he time-skipped to be the Dave in front of you. You let him do all the scouting after that, though it makes you uneasy for him to be putting himself in danger.  
          Then again, in the Medium, there’s not really anything out of danger.  
          He offered you a sword, "Not as good as mine, but less of a piece of sh—less bad than usual," but you turned it down. You didn’t know how to use it. So you picked up a baseball bat from his sylladex (never thought you’d count two years in a local soft-ball team as weapons training) and tried not to get yourself killed. It’s harder than you thought it would be.  
          The first time you kill an imp, you start shaking so badly that the bat slips out of your fingers, slick with sweat and an oily substance that you guess is their blood. It’s smeared all over you, up your arms, on your shirt, your shoes. You guess you should feel bad that you just killed something, but what really scares you, what makes it too hard to move or breathe or think, is that it almost killed you.  
          Dave gave you a nod, something like the passing of respect, and that. That scares you more than anything else you’ve seen so far.  
          It did, anyway, until the first time you saw a dead Dave.  
          The world tilted for a second, and then your Dave was kneeling over you, hands on your shoulders, shaking roughly. "If you don’t get up, I’ll start cursing like a witch at the stake, laying down wicked rhymes on all the good folk, curdling their milk and turning their farm animals inside out while the flames are—" his words kept going over you, around you, but you couldn’t look at him. Eight feet away was a little boy, fine blonde hair and skin tougher than it looks, eyes open and staring, shades nowhere in sight. One of his arms was missing, and a leg. Like something too big to be real grabbed hold of him and pulled until he came apart. No, not like. That’s exactly what happened. Something pulled him apart. Something was going to pull him apart. And there was nothing you could do to stop it.  
          Another hand came down, cool and smooth and completely at odds in this world of sharp edges and shimmering heat. "I’ve got this." Dave moved away and you whimpered until another one took his place, glowing orange with a ruffle of feathers around his neck. "Hey," he said. "It’s okay."  
          "He’s—"  
          "He’s a beta. The remnant of an unstable time loop. Something went wrong, he died, we fixed it. That’s it."  
          You tore your eyes away from the body, looking into orange shades. "What are you saying?"  
          "I’m saying, it’s not the real Dave."  
          That wasn’t the end of it, not by a long shot, but it got you back on your feet, got you moving again. Got you thinking.


	8. The Beta

          "What’s going to happen to you?"  
          The question catches you off-guard. Dave is off with the nakkodiles, scamming them for all they’re worth, and you’re—babysitting, you guess, making sure Liz stays out of trouble. You wish she wasn’t there most of the time; somehow it makes all of this seem more messed up than it felt the first time around. The rest of the time, you’re just glad you’re feeling something.  
          You shr01110101g. "Does it matter?"  
          "I won’t let you die." You laugh again, then pull it back, the amount of cawing in the sound making you uncomfortable. "There’s no ‘let’ about it. Time’s a cruel bitch. It chews betas up and grinds them into processed meat for stay-at-home moms to put on wonderbread with a slice of processed American cheese and pack in their little kiddies’ lunches."  
          She’s glaring at you and you roll your eyes behind the shades. "Jesus christ, I’m old enough to say bitch."  
          "It’s not that—though yes you need to watch your mouth—it’s you just accepting it. I mean, this is why your Bro trained you, right? So you could survive through all this?"  
          You jerk your head in the direction of the stock market, where Dave is no doubt already making a killing. "So _he_ could survive. I might have some major upgrades going on, but I’m just another doomed Dave. I knew what was going to happen when I came back. Just the nature of the game. "  
          "This isn’t _right_. You shouldn’t have to die just because of some weird space stuff. None of you should have to die. It’s—"  
          You jerk away from her when she goes to reach for you, angry. "It’s what? Not fair? Get your head in the fucking game, Liz. This thing isn’t _about_ fair. It’s about winning. "   
          "We can still do that without anyone else dying! You don’t know, maybe there’s a loophole, a—"  
          "I don’t know? I don’t fucking _know?!_ I’ve been trapped in this hellhole for _four fucking months_ on the brink of losing my _goddamned mind_ , and _you_ want to talk to _me_ about the things _I don’t know_?! " You’re losing control, you kno01110111 that, but you can’t find it in yourself to pull back.   
          "I’m sorry."  
          "You don’t get to _be_ sorry. "  
          She grabs your arm then, and you try to jerk away, but damn she has a firmer grip than you thought and you open your mouth to say something biting about it not being her business but, shit, she actually looks furious.  
          "I’m sorry that you had to go through that, but in case you haven’t noticed, _everyone I know is dead. Everyone_ in the whole. World. Every single one of you keeps saying I should go back, that I shouldn’t be here, that this is wrong. In case you’ve forgotten, going back means _dying_. In case you’ve forgotten, everyone on earth is _dead_ because you and your _stupid friends_ had the only means of escape on the whole planet, and you didn’t tell anyone. And you don’t even care. You keep making jokes and try to be ironic when _none of that even matters_. When every bit of reference material you use is gone, incinerated with the whole planet, a whole civilization, everything we’ve ever known and you couldn’t _care less_. What the _hell_ happened to you?"  
          "The game," you rasp. "The game happened to me." You let it go then, the hysterical laugh building inside you, and it sounds just the same as it did before, like the cheesiest track of crows to crawl out of Poe’s wetdreams and into a suckfest horrorfilm about the horny teens that are about to get axed in the woods outside some po-dunk hillbilly town to ever grace the straight-to-dvd rack. You let it spiral out of you, inhuman and full of death, because she’s right, but she’s so, so wrong.


	9. The Madonna

          He’s laughing now, and you think, _I drove him crazy_. You’re not sure what you’re supposed to do, so you go back to your instincts: you pull him onto your lap.  
          He doesn’t fight, seeming to actually relish the softer contact, arms going around your neck and tail curling around your waist, an awkward sideways hug the best you both can manage with a katana sticking out of him. Your arms settle around his shoulders, and he’s still making that sound, the one that sets every hair on end, but it’s ripping and wet, like he’s coming apart at the seams. You’d turn back time if you could, take back your words, awkwardly sit in silence until the other Dave came back, anything, so long as he just stops crying.


	10. The Broken

          She’s rocking you now, and rubbing your back, and it hurts you in a way you didn’t think was possible anymore.  
          She’s right, the game stripped everything from you, narrowed your world down to you and your land. You mourned John and Jade, but it was as much about your timeline being doomed as it was about losing two of your best friends. And you didn’t give the world even that, even one speck of regret. Doing so never even _occurred_ to you.   
          You know the same thing is happening to this timeline’s Dave. His world is narrowed to himself, his players. The only people that matter are the ones that can effect change in the game. It’s not even his fault, it’s just what Sburb does. It changes you. Narrows you. Makes you less than you were before.  
          You’re not sure what Liz is doing, or how. Why she still cares about things. Maybe it’s because she’s not a player. Maybe it’s some horseshit about love.   
          Maybe all it takes is time for her to be just like you. So broken inside that you don’t even realize pieces are missing. P01101001eces of humanity.  
          But that’s not what hurts. What hurts is, she cares about you. What hurts is, she’s making you care about her. What hurts is, for the first time since John bit the dust and Jade’s whole island was pulverized by a meteor the size of fucking Jupiter, since you were cut off from every possible way of winning, every viable means of escape, since you turned into a bird-brained servant-monster, for the first time since all that—  
          you’re afraid to die.


	11. The Traveller

          You’re not sure how long you’re sitting there, rubbing his back, before he pulls away from you, disentangling his tail to hover a few feet away. He’s not looking at you, or at least, his shades aren’t aimed your way, so you look down at your hands, twisting them in your lap. You’re afraid to say anything else, afraid to break him again, so the silence stretches and you try not to think about what he said. About all of the Daves that have to die all alone. Unless…  
          "I need you to take me time traveling."  
          He looks at you, expression back to zero, to flat, to the kind of look you’d give a stranger, or maybe a person you just don’t like very much. "When."  
          "To when that Dave we saw died."  
          "No."  
          He doesn’t say anything more, and you want to drop it. You’re not even really sure this is something you want to do. But it feels like something you should do, so you open your big mouth anyway. "I’m not going to try to stop it. I just want to be there."  
          He seems to think about it for a second, one hand resting on the hilt of his blade before tilting his head in a way that’s definitely more bird than boy. "Why?"  
          "I just want to be with him when he dies. And any other Daves we find, if you could take me back to when they die, too. I just want to be with them."  
          He doesn’t say anything, and the uncomfortable silence reminds you of talking to his brother. Then he holds out his hand and says, "I need to borrow your phone."  
turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC]   
TG: troll girl  
TG: terezi or whatever  
TG: need you to do something for me  
GC: 1S TH1S M1ST3R CR34MS1CL3 1 SM3LL?   
TG: cut the crap im not here to fap to your ridiculous picture edits or whatever it is dave and you do together  
TG: i need you to make a list for me  
GC: OH? 4ND WH4T W1LL YOU DO FOR M3 1N R3TURN? >;]  
TG: how about not punch your fucking lights out for killing my best bro  
GC: >:[ 1 4LR34DY S41D 1 W4S SORRY 4BOUT TH4T  
GC: 1 D1DN’T TH1NK H3’D 4CTU4LLY B3 DUMB 3NOUGH TO DO 1T.   
TG: okay first off this is my dead friend we’re talking about here i dont think calling him dumb is helping your case any  
TG: secondly just make the list and  
TG: i guess i’ll consider you forgiven  
GC: DO3S TH4T M34N YOU’LL L3T M3 L1CK YOU?   
TG: ew fuck no  
GC: >:[  
TG: fine  
TG: whatever  
TG: youve been jonesing on my ass so hard i guess ill just give you one  
TG: you can lick my lollipop  
GC: WH4T 1S 4 LOLL1POP?   
TG: you have got to be kidding  
TG: look can you just go make me a list of the when and wheres for every dave death so we can put this conversation out of its misery and never talk to eachother again  
GC: F1N3 >:P  
GC: MR. CR34MS1CL3’S OFF1C14L P3RM1SS1ON TO 4LLOW MS. PYROP3 TO L1CK H1S LOLL1POP.wps  
TG: good lord jegus what is wrong with you  
TG: fuck don’t answer that  
TG: just  
TG: thanks  
turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC]  
          He hands your phone back to you and says, "When do you want to start?"


	12. The Witness

          You don’t realize there’s anything wrong with him, at first, until he gives a weak cough and one of the red splotches on his red suit gets a little bigger.  
          Oh.  
          You kneel down next to him, legs trembling, wanting to run away and forget about this. Who would even know, if you just left, right now? Davesprite is waiting outside the room, and you don’t think he’d care, even if he saw you. This Dave? He’s dying, who’s he going to tell?  
          "Liz—"  
          The word is rough, and sets off another cough, which sets off another spurt of blood from the ragged line across his chest. You push back the hair from his eyes, hand resting on his forehead for a moment, struggling with what to do. And then the moment is up, and he’s not moving. Not breathing. He’s. He’s dead.  
          Oh.  
          You lean back then, pushing off the floor to rise to your feet. This wasn’t…what you expected. It doesn't feel like you thought it would.  
          It’s not as hard as you expected.  
          You go to Davesprite, feeling uncomfortable, like you’re somehow less than you were before. He must read it as sadness, because he asks, "Are you alright?"  
          You nod, but "That wasn’t the Dave I asked for."   
          He shifts, the sound of ruffling feathers carrying too much weight. "Not all of them are gonna have time for a deathbed scene. You get wrapped up in the heat-of-battle deaths like that, and we’ll just have a bunch of dead Lizs to deal with, too."  
          You nod. It had been stupid to think you could see them all, anyway. But still. You should do what you can.  
          "Take me to the next one."  
          You’ll keep trying, and hope that it’ll be different the next time around.


	13. The Mourner

          It is different, in the worst possible of ways.  
          You don’t see him, at first. Then there’s a thump, and a choking sound, and you look up to find Dave dangling from the tree next to you, legs trying to find purchase against its trunk while his hands claw at the cable around his neck.  
          "Shit," you hear behind you, turning to find Davesprite still there, watching the red-felt Dave struggle.   
          "Help him." You grab his arm, his shoulder, anything you can get ahold of. " _Help him!_ "  
          He looks at you, expression blank. "I can’t."  
          You tear away, going to the tree again, trying to climb it. Dave’s movements are getting weaker now, and desperation makes you frantic. Bark tears at your skin, making your palms bleed, but you get up to the branch that the cable is tied to, and if you can just cut him loose—but, you don’t have any scissors. You don’t have a knife. You even turned down the sword Dave offered you.   
          You pry at the knots in the weirdly slick cable, working at them long after Dave has stopped moving, but the weight has pulled them tight, and you can’t work them loose. Your fingers slow, desperation losing its edge as the world goes blurry and tears spill down your cheeks. You try to climb down, jump/falling about halfway there. Davesprite helps you to your feet, and you wipe at your nose, wondering when you got to be such a mess.   
          "How?" you ask. You know what it looks like, but that doesn’t seem right.  
          He shrugs."I don’t know. I lose track of them once they break off the main timeline."  
          You swallow back another lump. You’re not sure why it matters, but it does. You don’t want to think about him like that, alone and lost. And how scared he was at the hand, how he struggled and thrashed, if he did that to himself and then—   
          "Next one," you say. Davesprite looks at you for a moment, then there’s that weird twisting sensation again and you’re standing in another part of LOHAC with a black-suit Dave sitting up against the rusted gear jutting out of the ground to your right. Davesprite takes off again, rising into the air, and the black Dave looks up, paling when he sees you.  
          "Oh," he says. "Guess that’s why I can’t get anyone on pesterchum."  
          It doesn’t look like anything is wrong with this one, and you think, _he made a mistake_ , but what you say is, "What do you mean?"  
          "You, showing up. Means I’m about to die, right?"  
          The ground shifts and screeches under your feet, and your gut clenches. "It doesn’t look like there’s anything wrong with you."  
          He gestures down. "My broken legs would disagree with you."  
          Your throat gets tight, and you cross to stand in front of him, hovering just out of reach. "People don’t die from that."  
          "They do here." His voice is soft, like you’re the one that needs coddling. You go to crouch down, but the gears shift again, and you wind up sprawled across Dave’s legs, a hiss of pain escaping his clenched teeth.  
          "Sorry!" You scramble up, trying not to hit anything painful. He winces anyway. "Why does that keep happening?"  
          "We’re sinking."  
          "Into what?"  
          "The lava."  
          A sharp intake of breath. "Then we should probably get moving."  
          He raises an eyebrow at you, tilting his head down at his legs and back up.  
          "Oh." You swallow, the action harder than it should be. "That’s how…"  
          "Guess so."  
          The gears screech, and this time you can feel it, two halting jerks that leave you lower than you were before. "I could—"  
          He shakes his head, drawling out a "Nah. If you’re here, it means I made ‘rezi’s list, which means I’m already dead. Trying to stop something that’s already happened just means more dead Daves."  
          You sit there in silence then, not knowing what you’re supposed to do. His hand finds yours, and you squeeze tight, but you’re not sure if it’s for your benefit or his. Every time the gears shift, it seems to get a little hotter, and then you can see it, molten rock or metal or whatever it is inching its way up the slanted plane.  
          "Look, you should probably get out of here, call—"  
          "Seems like an awful way to go. Being burned alive."  
          He exhales, air leaving him in an almost-sigh. "Yeah, wouldn’t’ve been my first choice. But it’ll make a really cool tombstone."  
          You smile, a strained thing that feels unnatural. "He died as he lived: Smokin’ hot."  
          He smiles back, only on him, it looks genuine. "Haha, yeah." The gears move beneath you, and when things settle, the magma is only a few feet away.  
          "I could—"  
          "Look, you can’t alter anything."  
          "—kill you."  
          He looks at you then, and you think you can see his eyes widening behind his shades. "Oh."  
          "So you don’t have to burn."  
          "Yeah, no, I got it. Shit." He looks down, plucking at a pant leg as if trying to remind himself that he’s not going anywhere anyway. "Yeah," he says, not looking at you. "Yeah, you could do it."  
          You’re not sure if that’s permission, if you want it to be, if you really can kill him. But then he pulls a sword out of his sylladex and thrusts it at you, saying, "Here," and that’s about as clear as this sort of thing gets.  
          You take it, the length of metal feeling heavier in your hand than you thought it would. Your eyes prick and, dang it, it looks like you’re crying again.  
          "Hey," he says. You look up from the blade, and, oh. His shades. He took off his shades. "You don’t have to, if you don’t want to." You haven’t seen his eyes since he was nine years old. The gears move, and he looks scared.  
          "No," it comes out sounding like a sob, and you take a second to pull yourself together. "No, I’ll do it." You shift, crouching over him with half a sword in your hands, breathing heavy and strained. His eyes are on you, and you wish he’d just left the glasses on, just let you pretend this wasn’t really happening. You line the sword up with where you think his heart is, hilt slippery in your grip.   
          "Wait." He pushes the blade to the side, and you’re swamped with relief, and something else, that he doesn’t want this. Then his mouth is on yours, and you go still in shock, soft lips pressing, needy, and way too young. He pulls back, looking, for the first time you’ve ever seen, unsure of himself. Another sob bubbles up from your throat, and the gears beneath you shake. "Maybe I don’t mind being the damsel in distress," he says. "If you still want to be my knight in shining off-brand k-mart rejects." His eyes flick over to the notches of another gear, arcing up at a negative angle to climb out of this mess. But you can’t think of anything except _already happened_ and _more dead Daves_. Then your hand is moving, gripping the sword too tight, and there’s blood, and Dave looking surprised, and in pain, and you, with your hand on the hilt of the sword plunged in his chest. " Sorry," he manages, and it breaks your heart, that _he’s_ apologizing to _you_ , so you plant a kiss on his forehead, hoping that he knows you care about him, you love him, and then he’s dead and there’s blood in your mouth and you want to throw up but you can’t, because the gear is shifting again, sinking like it’s single-handedly trying to end diCaprio’s existence and you have to get out of here.  
          So you climb.  
          Davesprite meets you at the top. He must not have seen, because if he had, he wouldn’t ask again, "Are you alright?"  
          "No," you say, and your voice sounds old, old and dried up like the last gasp of someone who has nothing left to live for. "Next one."


	14. The Cracked

          There are sixteen more mercy killings, after that. About a dozen times that you show up too late to do anything more than say a prayer and give him an at-sea burial, LOHAC style (which is the closest you can come to saying you toss the bodies into the molten liquid below). Most of the time, though, you just hold his hand, tell him that things will be okay. Sometimes, if you’re there long enough, you manage to get out that you love him. Four times, he says he loves you back. Once, he calls you mom.   
          That’s when Davesprite takes you back when you came from, refuses to go to the next one until you stop shaking and crying. Alpha Dave sees the two of you, and Davesprite has to pry you off him because you’re clutching him to your chest with everything you’ve got. You’re not sure why it’s so different with Dave, except that it’s always been different with him, maybe because he never had a mom, or because he’s the first kid you ever watched grow up. Either way, this whole thing is ripping you apart, but the only thing that would feel worse than continuing is stopping.   
          You convince Davesprite that everything is okay so he’ll take you to the rest of the Daves. When all is said and done, you preside over the death of two hundred and seven blonde-haired boys.   
          Around Dave number one hundred and forty-three, Davesprite learns to stop asking if you’re alright.


	15. The Tarnished

          "This is your babysitter? She’s so cuuuute!" The little black-haired girl bounces around you, glasses slipping down an inch, her pushing them back up, them slipping back down again. You give her a weak smile. "Your dress is very pretty." You should say more, probably, meeting this girl who Dave obviously feels something for, but it’s about all you can manage. This place has been getting to you. You’re starting to believe them. That you don’t belong here, and never did.  
          The girl squints at you, leaning close. "You seem kind of tired," she says. "Do you want to lay down?" Her voice is soft, and even though she’s a head shorter than you, there’s an understanding in it that you thought only came with age.   
          "Yes." You won’t be able to sleep, you know, not worrying about—but a place to rest sounds nice. "I would like that."  
          A pair of lunchbox-shaped headphones appear on her ears then, projecting a computer screen in front of her eyes. You recognize the pesterchat client from behind, though you don’t have time to make out any of the blue words of the person she’s talking to before you sudden ly feee  
                               eel ti ir e d…  
          There are arms around you, breaking your fall, and then you’re on the ground, fast asleep.


	16. The Damsel

          You jolt awake, thrashing blindly until you realize that you’re alright, wrapped in a blanket in the same forest you were in before you fell asleep (you’re not really sure when that happened), though you seem to be alone.  
          Dave.  
          Another spike of adrenaline in your bloodstream, heart beating too fast and hard for restful sleep. You had a dream about Dave. About him dying, as if you hadn’t seen it happen enough times when you were awake. Except that in your dream you didn’t see it so much as _feel_ it, that sort of indescribable feeling of someone you love being in pain, and you not being able to do anything about it. You know he won’t want to see you (he hasn’t since his brother died, since you tried to hug him and he fought, his words like his brother’s, shutting you out, all the crueler because coming from him lent them truth), but you stagger to your feet anyway, stumbling through the forest to look for the last thing you care about in this world.  
          It’s hard going at first, just sort of wandering around blindly, hoping you find some kind of clue, but then you hit the snow, and it’s not long before you cross two tracks heading—you’re going to say east, because you have no idea if cardinal directions even apply here. Then it’s just a matter of following the footsteps in the frost.  
          Gunshots ring through the air, and your head snaps up. It’s coming from ahead, from where the trail leads, and you can’t help it, you break into a run. Your feet slide on the icy ground, but a second round of shots keeps you going, gulps of icy air painful in your chest.   
          You run by him, at first. Two strides, and then you realize the snow is clear of footprints, and you halt, spinning around. And there’s Dave, back in his red-sleeved shirt, lying in the snow, riddled with bullets.   
          You should be wondering why this death wasn’t on Terezi’s list. You should be wondering where the girl is, Jade, and if she’s alright. You should be on the lookout for his killer, someone new, since you haven’t seen any dersites wield guns before. But the scope of your world is shrinking, shrinking, and the only thoughts that exist are _dave, why, no_.  
          There’s the crackle of static in the air, and then a, a dog? A dog standing over Dave’s corpse, sword poised to take off the dead boy’s head, though you have no idea why he feels the need for such overkill. You don’t have any ideas about anything that doesn’t involve ripping him to fucking shreds.  
          You’re all forward movement, hands outstretched, mouth twisted in a snarl, wanting to hurt that thing more than oh. Oh that is. A sword. Inside you.  
          It hurts more, and less, than you thought it would.

          But it definitely hurts.


	17. The Knight

          Your eyes open to a purple ceiling, and you think, _great, first kiss and I have to be dead through it_.  
          A tapping sound comes from your desk, and you look up to see Rose drumming her fingers on the wood, idly watching you. Somehow you know, just looking at her, that she’s not asleep, but it doesn’t seem worth mentioning.  
          "Have you rested sufficiently to restore your everlasting beauty? Are you sure you don’t require another few minutes?"  
          You sit up, swinging your legs over the edge of the bed. "And leave my prone form vulnerable to whatever weird fetishistic explorations you’re dying to start? Not happening."  
          "I assure you, my "explorations" are undertaken purely for the sake of more accurately depicting the male body in literature."  
          "That I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not is creepy as fuck."  
          "I take that as a compliment."  
          "Knew you would." You stand, body seeming to carry more weight than it did before. You guess being down to one life is literally some heavy shit. "What’s up sis?"  
          "What is it that gives you the impression anything might be?"  
          "You’re being more straightforward than usual, and you haven’t analyzed my speech patterns for phallic imagery once in the last two minutes and thirty-eight seconds. Sort of a dead-giveaway."  
          She smirks, a tiny uptick to the corner of her mouth that has just enough smugness to tell you she’s part Strider, even if John hadn’t owned up to being everyone’s ectobio-baby-daddy. "I suppose you’re right. How very careless of me."  
          You shift, hands restless without pockets to shove them into. "I notice that you’re still pretty tight-lipped over there."  
          She chews at her lip, and again, you can’t tell if she’s doing it in sincerity or for show. Girl’s harder to read than a scroll of ancient hieroglyphs worn away by sand. "There’s a task that someone must undertake."  
          You shrug, the barest amount of movement necessary to convey your nonchalance. "And here I am with a suddenly empty day-planner."  
          She looks at you with a deadpan expression any Strider would be proud to bear. "It is not a task that the undertaker will be coming back from."  
          There are a lot of things that could go through your mind when she says that. You could think about Jade, blaming herself for getting you shot up, not knowing right now whether you’re dead or alive. You could think about Davesprite, MIA since the way-creepy "only dreams now" incident (though if the iridescent blood at the scene of your Bro’s battle with Noir was anything to go by, that could probably be reclassified as KIA without too much fuss). You could think about Liz, broken and pale, trailing after you like a too-clingy ex that doesn’t realize "we can still be friends" means "I don’t ever want to see you again." You could think about how unfair this all is, another person dying, not even to win anymore, but just to get a chance to win. But you don’t. None of that even occurs to you.   
          You’ve been in the game too long.  
          The only thing that occurs to you is, "I’ll do it."


	18. The Wanderer

DAVE: Where will you go?  
You told him you were going to do your own thing, maybe try to catch u01110000 to Bro. Mostly, you wanted him to think you weren’t watching him anymore, so he’d rely on himself more, start being the hero he’s meant to be or whatever. As much as you’d like to leave him for real, there’s too much sprite in you to leave him permanently.  
But, you think you can manage to be gone for long enough to do just one thing…  
          You sn01100001g the phone off his sleeping form and open up pesterchum.  
turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC]  
TG: yo terezi  
TG: theres something else i need you to look up


	19. The Boy

          You fly high, not familiar with the land, though one of the strings of binary in your head supplies the name Land of Frost and Frogs. Terezi gave you directions, but it’s kind of hard finding your way when everything is trees and your guide is a blind chick. Then you hear the gunshots, and you think, _figures_.  
          By the time you 01100111et there, the clearing is empty except for two bodies on the ground, neither one going anywhere anytime soon. You ignore the dead Dave, swooping in on the one you came for.  
          She gasps, blood bubbling up from her lips, and you can see yourself reflected in her eyes, this floating orange thing with an impossible body and inhumanly impassive face. You go to take off your shades, give her some indication that you care, but you suddenly realize that when you prototyped, the glasses b01100101came part of your face.  
          Fuck, you really are a monster.  
          You lower yourself to the ground, tail curling gently around her legs as your hand slips into hers. Her eyes are too wide, almost popping out of her head, breath coming heavy and spraying flecks of blood. Anything you might say doesn’t seem right, so you just say, "Hey."  
          "Da—" _gasp_ " Dave?" Her fingers clutch at yours feebly, and you tighten your grip, wondering if she can actually feel you. If this is helping at all.  
          Her breath is coming heavier, harder. Isn’t death supposed to be peaceful or some shit? You’re not sure how she managed to do this once, let alone hundreds of time, but you figure you owe her at least trying to return the favor. More blood wells out of the hole in her chest, wet and sticky and just like the blood of every person you’ve ever seen. Except your0111001101100101lf, of course. You aren’t even really sure yo01110101 _can_ bleed.  
          She struggles to speak, lips moving soundlessly, a bubble of blood growing, growing—popped, and now there’s probably blood on your face, warm and full of life, but a sign of impending death. Not that you can feel 0110100101110100.  
          A part of you wants to kiss her. A part of you thinks, there goes the last person that cares about you beyond your ability to further progress in the game. Cares about you, Dave Strider, and not you, Davesprite. And you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t had a whole slew of wet dreams starring her, years of yearning after the older, more mature girl, getting all the interesting parts before anyone your own age. But it feels wrong, or at least, not right. She’s in no position to say no, and you, are you even something worth kissing anymore? Would she—wait. She’s  
          She’s dead.  
          Oh.  
          oh.  
          0110111101101000.  
          Her hand is still in yours, still clutching. Her eyes are staring at you, open, blank. Blood around her mouth, down her chin, coating her shirt. Chest still, raised, paused in the act of heaving, air trapped in lungs without the power to expel it, gases building to make odd noises, to give the illusion of life hours, even days in the future. Everything about her is pain, and fear, and struggle: a still shot of panic.  
          This isn’t right. Death’s supposed to be peaceful. It’s supposed to be an end, an escape. You’re supposed to get final words and closure and catharsis. She’s supposed to look like she’s sleeping. This isn’t any of that, this isn’t good or peaceful or comforting to anyone, _this isn’t right_.  
          Meat. A hunk of decaying meat where a person used to be. A _thing_ where a _person_ used to be.  
          Your stomach roils and you turn aside to retch, dry-heaving because of course you don’t really have a stomach. You, too, are a th0110100101101110g, where there was once a person. You are decaying, bits of yourself eaten away by code until you can’t remember if there used to be more of you. You can’t remember if you’re different, you only remember that you felt like you were different, before, when there might have been more of you than there is now. Eventually, you’ll be like that corpse over there. 01101100011010010110011001100101less. Nothing but cod01100101. Looking like yourself, but not containing you, your essence, your Self. If you haven’t reached that point already.   
          Strings of code coil inside you, urging you to find Dave, go back to your player, make sure he’s alright. The crow in you is fidgety, wants to find a high place to roost, or else peck out Liz’s eyes, feed on the soft exposed flesh. You heave again, the ghost of non-existent bile stinging your throat, both relieved and sickened that you can’t actually vomit. 00000000s and 11111111s skitter across your skin, code writhing under the surface, urging you to go back in time, find alpha Dave, protect, protect, prot0110010101100011t.   
          You lift into the sky, wings sweeping in a powerful downstroke you don’t really need, since flying is just part and parcel of being a sprite. You need to feel like you’re moving under your own power, even if it means you’re more crow than boy.   
          But the game is all ar01101111und you, inside you, eating away at you. You want to fight it, but you’re not sure you can. So the best you can do is redirect it. The game wants you to pr01101111tect Dave? Sure. You can do that. You can protect him from the bigge01110011t threat you know of: Jack Noir.  
          You spin back your timetables to five seconds after you left, hovering over 01000100ave’s sleeping form just long enough to make sure he’s still alrig01101000t before taking off for the beat mesa, where you can feel a dark energy p011101010110110001110011ing.   
          You’re not 0110011101101111ing to surviv01100101. You know that, because Liz looked at you the sa0110110101100101 01110111ay she looked at all those doomed Dave’s: like she’d a01101100ready se01100101n you die. But tha01110100’s 01101111kay. You’0111001001100101 okay.  
          01100101ver0111001001111001hing is g01101111ing t01101111 0110001001100101 01101111011010110110000101111001.  
010000010110110001101100001000000111100101101111011101010010000001101110011001010110010101100100001000000111010001101111001000000110010001101111001000000110100101110011001000000111001101110100011011110111000000100000011000110110000101110010011010010110111001100111.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading all the way through uwu
> 
> Any comments you have are appreciated.


End file.
